For crorepati candidates, money no ticket to poll success

NEW DELHI: Being loaded definitely helps at poll time but it does not guarantee victory , if assembly elections 2009 are anything to go by. Preliminary analysis suggests that crorepati candidates were evenly poised at the hustings and their substantial assets played little role in deciding their political destiny.

For instance, according to data analysed by National Election Watch, in Haryana, a majority of candidates were crorepatis. Of the 489 candidates, a staggering 251 had declared assets worth more than a crore. Among those who top the list are Haryana Janhit Congress���s Mohit followed by Congress���s Vinod Sharma who won from Ambala City. While Mohit���s assets came to a whopping Rs 92 crore, it could not secure him a seat while Sharma won. Of the top 20 candidates analysed, 10 won while the rest lost the election.

The situation was the same in Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh as well. In Maharashtra, 22% of candidates were crorepatis, that is 461 of 2,069 candidates had assets over Rs 1 crore. NCP topped the list with 74% of its candidates being crorepatis, followed by Congress with 63% and BJP with 52%. Eleven of the top 20 crorepati candidates won while nine lost. The total assets of all candidates in Maharashtra amounted to Rs 2,542 crore with an average of Rs 1.2 crore per candidate.

The wealthiest candidate in Maharashtra was Abu Azmi, Samajwadi Party candidate from Mankhurd Shivaji Nagar constituency, with assets of Rs 126 crore. He was followed by Shiv Sena���s Sureshkumar Bikamchand Jain from Jalgaon Urban with Rs 79 crore and Congress���s Rajkumar Sumermal Bafna from Malabar Hill with 34 crore.

The trend continued in Arunachal with 10 crorepati candidates winning and the rest losing. Of the 151 candidates contesting elections in the state, 63 had declared assets of over a crore that is about 41.72%. The richest candidate was Takam Tagar representing People���s Party of Arunachal for Palin constituency. His assets totalled Rs 209 crore. A distant second , paling in comparison with assets worth Rs 24 crore, was Congress���s Nabam Rebia who won from Doimukh constituency with 6,752 votes.